Happy
by lyingtonguesareclumsy
Summary: "For I shall find the future…that one moment in time where each of you feel the greatest amount of happiness and it is there, I shall slaughter you." He knew what he had to do, to defeat this final foe. To protect everyone. To make sure they were all happy. And he felt like he would never taste happiness again.
1. Chapter 1

The last he saw of Yhwach was that wicked smile surrounded by a fading reiatsu. His mind was blank, for a time. Then, once the gears really started turning again, they seemed to be on a loop of just four thoughts.

 _One. Yhwach knew his future, knew his future when he would be at his absolute happiest, and has promised that that would be the moment he would come back to take it all away._

 _Two. Rukia. Rukia made him happy. Well of course he had his family, and he had his friends, and they all made him happy, they were all important and he needed to protect them so that they could all be happy, too. But Rukia, she- she stopped the rain, she was his light, he thought maybe he loved her, she made him happiest. She was the most important. She was Rukia._

 _Three. She was a shinigami._

 _Four. He was still just a human._

He knew what he had to do, to defeat this final foe. To protect everyone. To make sure they were all happy.

And he felt like he would never taste happiness again.


	2. Chapter 2

Ichigo stood there a while longer. He tilted his head back and just looked at the clouds overhead. He couldn't bear the devastation around him. He couldn't bear the visual confirmation of who had been lost, who had made it through, if only just.

He tried to swallow past the bitter catch in his throat, but it was hard. He eyes shut briefly, they flickered. _What would it have been like?_ He wondered.

He daydreams then. Of happiness.

He takes away all the complications, all the harsh realities holding them back.

He runs his hands through soft tendrils of imagined hair. There's a glimpse of violet eyes, just out of reach, hidden under bashful lids. A teasing smile rests in the corner of her mouth.

He inhales deeply, and though all he gets is a lungful of acrid, burnt, and dusty air, it's as if he has taken in the headiest scent of her- as if he'd buried his head in that delicate crook between her neck and shoulder and breathed deep.

He would have liked that, he thinks. Just that spot, right there with his arms wrapped around her, he feels certain he could have stayed there for the rest of his life and been happy. If he had ever gotten there to begin with, he would never have left.

He sees lazy days spent by the river. He sees bad drawings and teasing jokes. He sees walks around the neighborhood, hand in hand. Reading a book over each other's shoulders and arguing over when to turn the page.

Snowmen built in the park. Sandcastles at the beach.

Going to the theater, her in a red dress.

Maybe a tiny fist or two curled around his finger. A warm bundle, a steady weight in his arms. With her eyes. Maybe.

Legs tangled on the couch flipping through the stupid TV channels. Hiding in the manor's gardens from Byakuya and Kenpachi and whoever else. Running off to Rukongai just to get away for a little while. Maybe even to Hueco Mundo just for the hell of it.

Just being. Together.

When his eyes open, the sky is still bright. The clouds have moved a little. There's a breeze. He can hear the frantic scurry of shinigami helping each other to the Fourth and surveying the damage and even a few celebrating their victory in the war, even in the midst of such devastation, just glad to be alive.

He wishes he could rejoice, too.


	3. Chapter 3

As it is, he feels suddenly frozen inside, it's a wasteland. Like he's been dumped into a bucket of ice water. Like he's an old key that's been purposely tossed in the corner to be forgotten. He's got Renji, and Rukia, and Inoue behind him, Byakuya and Toushirou below him, Aizen smirking off to the side…

And he just feels like they lost. Like he lost. He couldn't protect everyone. They couldn't protect him either, no matter if or how hard they tried.

Friends and enemies alike had come together- everyone he ever knew it seemed. It wasn't enough.

And the weight of it all hits him then. He slumps to the ground, defeated. He brings his knees up to his chest, arms crossed over, Zangetsu tilted to the ground, loose in his fist.

His old friend, in his old form. He didn't even try to comprehend what it all meant now, what it might mean for his future or what it meant about what he actually was anymore if anything.

Was he really a shinigami? And what about his hollow? His quincy inheritance? Were all his myriad powers just gone, or still there combined as one? Did he still have fullbring? Wasn't he supposed to just be human?

It didn't matter, really.

He was just sick of the tricks. Sick of the constant change, the rug being pulled out from under him every time he turned around. Most of all, he was sick and tired of people taking his powers from him. Stealing them for themselves. He was over it. Would they ever stop?


	4. Chapter 4

He doesn't feel like this could be reality. Should be reality.

Just as he closes his eyes again- to shake his head and clear his thoughts or maybe to go back to that place where he was happy, he isn't sure- he feels a hand on his shoulder.

It's her. Of course it's her. She's picked herself up and come over to bring him out of it, like only she ever could when he gets this melancholy in his moods.

Rukia offers him that small smile, that one that's hiding in the corner of her mouth, the one that makes him happy, makes the sun shine and the rain dry, and he does his best to give it back.

And if his lip trembles a lit bit, or his eyes seems a little watery, his gaze too emotional, she doesn't say anything. She's always been the stronger of them anyway.

But if in return, her eyes widen a little in uncertainty and flash a look of confusion before shutting away her emotions and putting on her best noble-lieutenant-shinigami blank face, well, he'll take it to the grave.


	5. Chapter 5

Her touch on him lingers, but she moves away to help Inoue over and sits her next to him, together. Then she follows Renji and they're flash-stepping down to Byakuya and Toushirou and helping them and helping other shinigami and taking charge and being lieutenants of the Gotei 13. Even it has fallen down around them.

Inoue and him, they look out over what had once been such a proud, regal institution, now reduced to crumbles.

Inoue is saying something to him, something he's sure is about how glad she was she could help him this time and how glad she was he survived, they all survived, and that she was so happy she could do something.

He nods and smiles a bit towards her, but really right now he can't be bothered to do more.

Inside him, it's a rainstorm, and it's flooding, and he's just trying to stay afloat, trying to breathe. Because how could he be happy like her, when it felt like the door to happiness had just closed on him forever?


	6. Chapter 6

A couple of days pass. A week? Two? He doesn't know. All he knows is it will never be enough time. Clearly however long it has been is not long enough. He will never have enough time to fit in what little bits of happiness he has left to glean and grab while he can. It will never be enough.

They stuck together, Rukia and Ichigo, once they'd been checked out by Isane, and Inoue, gotten the go ahead to start whatever it was that needed to start to get on with rebuilding, with starting over.

He mostly follows her around. She has things that need to be done after all. A division to see to. (A captain to mourn.)

He does not have things to do. School will wait. Soul Society is saved.

His friends already came and saw he was doing alright, assured themselves that he was still there, still out there somewhere at least. They saw Chad and Inoue and Uryuu as well and are glad to see all their friends made it through.

His family came, too, and came back more frequently, nearly daily, just to make sure.

Those Soul Tickets Kyouraku had handed out seemed to be very handy.

(And why couldn't he have had one during those 17 months? Didn't he at least deserve that much? Yes, he is bitter. He feels he has that right.)

But even so, they could not stay. Isshin clearly had no desire to be in Soul Society longer than necessary each time they came and the girls stood out like sore thumbs.

Yuzu and Karin had been glad to finally understand what was happening, what had been happening for so long. They had met their cousins, had hugged their brother and tried never letting go. But they were in mortal, human bodies and they could not stay forever.

Isshin had seen his niece, his nephew, had faced up to his lieutenant, his third-seat. Nothing was the same. How to explain away 20 years? How to go over those painful memories, different for each one, how to explain that he had made the best decision of his life, despite the pain of the choice, despite the pain of the following years and their own tragedies? How to explain that those 20 years were the happiest of his life and he was not coming back?


	7. Chapter 7

And so when his friends and family are not there, Ichigo is at Rukia's side. Just there, in her presence. He helps with what he can (paperwork, rebuilding) and is a calming presence beside her when he can't (funeral after funeral after funeral and the pain of loss for Ukitake).

He doesn't usually say much. He would rather just quietly soak up her presence. And she doesn't mind, it makes it easier truthfully, to go about her duties undisturbed with him beside her, although no one would question his presence in the first place, after everything.

Her heart may be catching, may be stopping and stuttering, at the thought of what he isn't saying. Of what has taken the light from his eyes. What he faced with Yhwach. What he did to win.

She lets him be. She is soaking him up, too.

She can feel it- he is building up to something, steeling himself for it. But she can't possible think about what that could be, what it could mean. She has shinigami duties and the running of the 13th Division to attend to.

He will tell her when he is ready.

She'll catch him fingering the sleeve of her shihakusho walking beside her down the rubble-filled streets of the Seireitei.

He brushes that pesky piece of hair out of her eyes more times than she can count.

And when they're alone, in her office, or maybe at the fourth getting checked up, or maybe just at a dead end in the Seireitei somewhere hiding from duties for just a moment, just to breathe, he'll play with the end of the ribbon on Shirayuki's hilt.

All these little gestures are so harmless. So simple. So full of care. And love.


	8. Chapter 8

She's basking in the attention.

It feels like Shirayuki is curling up to Zangetsu, like he's the heat of a warm fire in the middle of winter, and instead of melting away she's thawing and they're wrapping around each other, bleeding together, healing together, mixing, being one.

It's a sensation like no other, like fire racing up her spine, wrapping around her heart. Like sinking into a hot spring with not a single care or worry in the world.

And so, when he does leave her side, on those rare and short occasions throughout these past few days, if all the warmth feels like it's seeping from her bones, from her veins, then she tells her self she must simply build her wall of ice around her that much stronger.

For by now, she knows what his actions mean without thinking about it. His actions are plain, it is a wonder no one else has figured it out yet.

Or maybe they have figured it out. Figured out long ago and they decided to leave Ichigo and Rukia to it. To not disturb them. To give them this time.

She supposes that explains the small distance Renji and Nii-sama have given her recently. She had thought it was simply Sixth Division business occupying their time. And she supposes she has noticed some lingering glances, some swallowed words. She had just filed them away for later, too occupied with Ichigo and her own division.

Anyways…

Ichigo is back now. She feels like she just got him back, feels like it was just yesterday she had put a second sword through his body and saw the light come back into his eyes when he finally saw her again. Saw the desperation in his eyes before, when he thought he had lost all his power once again. Saw the sheer terror in his, when he thought that he would lose her as her body jerked between his and Tsukishima's before Riruka jumped out of her chest.

She can't help that she feels that way. All she can do is tell herself, when she is near his warmth, his overpowering reiatsu, his sheer presence, is to build that ice wall stronger. Protect her heart.

Each time it melts she will freeze it over yet again so it is thicker, stronger. Because she knows, she knows, that what is coming, what is lurking in his eyes, hiding in his thoughts, has the power to shatter her.

And she can't let herself shatter. She has to be strong, to withstand. He is the human in this equation, she is the shinigami, she is the one who must endure forever and ever and she just can't shatter.

She just can't.


	9. Chapter 9

He takes her hand one morning, he thinks maybe a month after Yhwach faded into the ether, and takes her away from her work, away from duty and civilization. They end up in a meadow, in the forests near the 13th divisions training grounds.

It's a peaceful spot. There's a breeze. It ripples across the grasses and through the leaves.

He sits down at a tree near the edge of the clearing, his back to it, leaning on the trunk. He pulls her down with him, between his spread legs, her back to his chest. He wraps his arms around her stomach, holds tight. She folds her hands across them. His chin is over her shoulder, buried at the juncture to her neck, just that spot he had dreamed about, a lifetime ago it seems. He closes his eyes and pulls her closer.

Her breath hitches. She does nothing to disturb their position. Her thumb rubs gently over his forearm.

She stares blankly out at the meadow, her mind empty, her head resting on his.

They sit there silently.

Eventually, he relaxes against the tree with a huff and she's leaning back on him, his arms still wrapped around her.

They've laced their fingers together now.


	10. Chapter 10

More silence. The sun has passed its peak and is on its descent now.

"I'm going back tomorrow," he says into the stillness. "I'm not coming back."

She turns her head from where it is on his shoulder towards his neck, her breath escaping slowly from where she'd held it when he spoke.

She manages a nod, she doesn't think she can get her lips to move right now. Not now that the time is here. That he is saying what she knew he would, that this is final now, that this is happening, that this is real.

"When I die, I don't want to remember." She closes her eyes against his words.

"Can you make sure? I just want to be some old man wandering Rukongai with no powers and no memory of life or how he got there. I won't join the Gotei 13. I'll just be a soul with no clue what a shinigami even is."

More silence. She feels the cracks in her wall, the one around her heart. Feels them expanding.

He doesn't want to hold this power forever. This burden. She gets it, she does. But also… he won't remember. He'll die, and move on, and leave her behind.

She clutches tight at his hands, and them releases them slowly, reaching for her Shirayuki and his Zangetsu, pulls them between their laps.

She hasn't responded to him yet, but he seems unbothered by it. Just watches whatever it is she's doing. Maybe his fingers are tighter around her stomach, at her hips, but if they are, they are only helping keeping her icy wall around her heart from collapsing.

She ends up playing with Shirayuki's ribbon and Zangetsu's shoulder strap, entwining them together. She thinks about fate and red strings and two souls finding each other out of millions.

She feels that warmth at her spine, an embrace, and she knows he feels something similar when his arms tighten. She didn't even think that was possible.

A tear drops, solitary and lonely, down her cheeks. He kisses it away.

At that, she lets out the softest whimper, barely there, but he hears it and shushes her right away, rocks her, soothes her.

But that is all she allows herself, the one tear. She must be strong. For him.


	11. Chapter 11

They've repositioned. They're lying amidst the moss and grasses, under the tree, nose to nose facing each other, barely any space between them now as his arms are still around her waist and hers around his shoulders, one hand occasionally playing with his orange tresses, ruffling them.

They've talked half the night away. Spill their hearts to one another, their souls.

He tells her about his daydreams from the past month of his self-imposed silence, his fantasies about what could be, if they could be happy. She tells him her deepest, darkest secrets, what she had hoped for in the shortest instants before reason would come back to her, before reality would prevail.

The share words of confession, of love, of admiration, of futures. Of their importance to one another, of what it means.

They whisper these thoughts to each other to keep safe, shared, but secret. Futile, but yearned for in the depths of their hearts. To be locked away in a forgotten drawer and only taken out to look at when the time and opportunity has long passed and the pain for what could have been will have lessened.

Their fantasies bring smiles to their lips, and light to their eyes, joy to their hearts. These are precious moments.


	12. Chapter 12

Their words come slower and slower until they peter to a halt.

He looks at her, deep into her eyes, and it feels like he is seeing into her soul.

Until finally, "You make me the happiest, Rukia. He knew that."

She wants to yell at him. To tell him not to give up, to tell him to defy all expectations, defy Yhwach prove him wrong. Prove that their bonds have been forged and reforged countless times and he cannot break them.

But she knows, as he does, that while their bond will stand the test of time, it does not mean their bond will keep them together indefinitely. They know they were doomed to part. That the 17 months they'd endured before was just a taste of reality, harsh as it was for them both. They know that the past month is the last respite, the last chance, the last time, though it feels like they had only just begun.

There is a bitter taste in her mouth as she swallows her retorts down.

She knows better. She knows better than to tell him her heart, that one last piece, to tell him to be selfish and not to leave her. She knows not to make this harder than it already is.

"I love you, too, fool," she whispers.

He closes his eyes and touches his forehead to hers. It seems a defeat somehow.

"Love you, Rukia," he murmurs.

"Ichigo…"


	13. Chapter 13

They stare into each other's eyes for the rest of the night undisturbed.

A soft, steady gaze. It filled her with a warmth. They breathe together. Their hearts beat as one. She would be satisfied with this.

Dawn creeps across the horizon. The crickets chirp and the birds chirp for worms.

He releases her from his embrace and stands up shaking himself off.

She rolls to her back, watching him in. Drinking him in for the last time.

He looks to the sunrise for a time before opening the Senkaimon with Zangetsu and then turns back to her and offering a hand up.

She goes with him easily, keeping his hand in hers.

He stares at it and suddenly seems at a loss. He seems to flounder.

The gate is at his back and he is frozen. He can't do it. He can't just give up his chance at happiness so easily can he? Just like this?

She can. She can do it for him, she can be that strong, to give him that final push.

Rukia steps into him one last time, looks into his eyes.

"You'll make a wonderful human. Go and live, Ichigo."

At that he huffs and gives a smirk, "See ya, Shinigami."

He dips his head and she is there stretching up, their lips meet, brush. It is brief, it is enough.

He turns and walks through the doors.

And if nothing else, it is not a goodbye.

It is only because she has stood there long enough, staring at where doors had once been, that Renji has come looking for her. And as she allows herself to break, it is because she knows he is there to catch her as she falls.

…


	14. Epilogue

They adjust. It's not as bad as those first 17 months when he had no powers.

He gets communications from Urahara's shop whenever he drops by. He doesn't even try at his own powers when a hollow is nearby, though he probably should just to check out what works and what doesn't.

But he really can't be bothered now. He has done his time for Soul Society.

He can still see the ghosts. The hollows, too. And he can see the shinigami who battle them. No it's not her, or any one he knows really, not even Imoyama-san (though he'd call him by his actual name if he saw him, just in relief to see a friendly face).

Truthfully, he doesn't need to worry about it, though he doesn't know who these shinigami are, and they seem to be oblivious to his presence, or at least think he's like everyone else and that he can't see them. (It's like they're not even taught current events, really.)

Rukia's been managing the 13th pretty well in his estimation, since there's more than just one shinigami stationed in Karakurachou now. Something that should have been done long ago if you asked him.

She visits him a few times, at the beginning. She always brings someone along. The reason is always different- they need a break from rebuilding, they just wanted to pop in and say hi, or sometimes even because they want to pick a fight with him since he did a terrible job at saying his goodbyes. But she never stays for long and it tapers out after a while.

Urahara gives him a phone with interdimensional abilities.

They talk sometimes.

Never like how it was that one night. But about life. About their frustrations. About something funny that happened.

About where life is taking them.

It is never the same.

His life takes him to Orihime and he finds things about her he never appreciated before.

Her life rebuilds her relationship with Renji until eventually it grows past where they had once been.

Rukia is glad to see the life he is building, full of laughter and love, family and strength.

Ichigo thinks of what Renji had told him before his final meeting with Yhwach and is also glad.

She visits with Renji and an infant Ichika after Kazui is born. He never sees her unleash her Bankai. He does not train with her. He is not there when she is promoted to Captain of the 13th Division.

They promise their children will grow up friends, but they don't see each other again until a full ten years has passed since Yhwach.

Since that last threat.

But Ichigo is secure in his defeat of Yhwach. For how can that threat- to destroy his world at his happiest- come to fruition when he has never reached his happiest?

He gave that up. Sacrificed his happiest. And as bitter as he is sometimes, when he thinks about it sitting alone the dark at night and his heart aches with the conflict, he has come to terms. He thinks she has, too.

Whatever Yhwach saw could not possibly harm him or his world here and now, for that happiest future is naught but a fantasy now. It is a land of could have been. Ichigo was no expert, but he supposed Yhwach would simply cease to exist when he came into contact with this new future where he is happy, but not his happiest. He would be defeated simply because that future he saw, that future with his happiest moment, did not exist.

That world exists only in his dreams, in the whispers between him and Rukia, on that last night, and kept as a secret safely hidden in their hearts ever since.

"Yo."

"Hey."

And this space, caught between them, is where he could have been happiest.


End file.
